


To Sleep

by vanessasketch



Category: Incredible Hulk (2008), Incredible Hulk - All Media Types, Marvel Avengers Movies Universe
Genre: Cracksmash RP, F/M, Nightmares, Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-25
Updated: 2012-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 00:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanessasketch/pseuds/vanessasketch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You'd expect Bruce Banner to have a difficult time sleeping, and in truth, it's always been that way. A brief look at why and how it's changed over the years.</p><p>The end references Cracksmash RP canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Sleep

It never came easy to Bruce. As a child it was not the dark that bothered him but the loneliness; the nights his father dragged his mother out—away from him—and he was left with the babysitter. She was cold and distant, but he listened when she told him to go to bed because it was important to Be Good. Sleep did not come, not until after hours of staring at the window, wondering when he would see the headlights as his parents’ car pulled into the driveway. The nights they stayed home…were worse and better. There was shouting, crashing, and breaking, but there was his mother. Underneath the pale yellow bedspread they were warm; her hand softly running through his unruly dark hair as he clutched Gorilla to his small chest. A dreamless sleep came then at long last, one that smelled of cedar and nutmeg.

Once she was gone (the permanent gone, the escape thwarted in its first moments) sleep became an activity to engage in only because the body demanded it. It was expected of you to at least attempt it, and so Bruce did, in the unfamiliar bed at Aunt Susan’s; a bed he would have for years but never accept was his, same with the room, same with the house. There was no more cedar and nutmeg, no more warmth in the dark of the night, only the familiar scents being snuffed out in a twisted memory replayed as a nightmare whenever his mind drifted away into unconsciousness. Gorilla was of no use anymore; she sat on the bare shelf in the corner, her one eye glaring at him.

Years added to the nightmares; the accident gave him an entire new set. The brick house gave way to the gleaming white lab, his father gave way to the stretched, twisted, and enraged green visage of himself, now the very creature all nightmares were made from. To wake was to dream, blurred fragmented memories that flashed before his eyes during the day, and gnarled recollections and promises of horrors to come in the night. The slightest noise, the slightest breeze would wake him, his thoughts running a mile a minute with a terrified mixture of _“who did I hurt,” “they found me,”_ and _“calm down breathe.”_

Bruce woke before the soft chime of the alarm; it was a noise that was never too loud or too blaring. He suspected Tony had someone pick it out for him when he moved in, one of the rare features his room contained. There was that split second of panic he got when waking, a tiny jolt that made his stomach fold in on itself—

A soft sigh and a tug at the covers made it stop. He looked over and there was Betty, long dark hair all over the pillow, the blanket curled up towards her face. The replacement door for his room had arrived the day before, and between her joke about moving in, and his impromptu proposal, it had been an obvious outcome that she would be there. With him.

Their time together had never made sleep easy, had never stopped the nightmares from cutting it into segmented pieces. At first it had been embarrassing and awkward; an admission of all the terrible things that laid underneath, his myriad of ghosts that existed in the frightening place between memory and imagination. There had been guilt, always, that his screwed up mind wasn’t hers to help or know, that she didn’t need the kind of disruption that a—( _don’tsayitdon’tsayit_ )—mess like him would bring. It had been an obstacle, there had been frustration and confusion, but as always Betty met it head on and dealt with it.

Betty tugged again, pulling the covers all the way up to her face. Bruce glanced at the clock; there was more time before it went off than he thought. He settled back under the blankets, wrapping an arm gently across Betty’s waist.

There were times, now and then, when it was easy.


End file.
